


Blunt Force Trauma

by paradiamond



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Forced coming out, Joyce is wonderful, Multi, OT3 whump, Steve POV, bed sharing, it's not a lot but it happens, no permanent injures or anything, the violence tag is for Steve's dad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-03
Updated: 2017-12-03
Packaged: 2019-02-10 07:25:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12907056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paradiamond/pseuds/paradiamond
Summary: Steve’s parents actually come home for once, at the worst possible time.





	Blunt Force Trauma

It wouldn’t have been so bad if Steve had been with Nancy when his dad walked in, or even if Jonathan had been with her and Steve was only in the room. At least then they could pretend. Just sharing a girl between friends, no big deal. His dad might have even given him a high five or something equally horrible, pretending to be mad for his mother’s sake but sending Steve a wink that would make his skin crawl when her back was turned. 

It would have made Steve sick, but it would have been livable. He never would have been able to be with either of them in his room again, not after that, but it wouldn’t have killed them. 

Survivable, just like the rest of it. Livable. But not this. It’s not survivable. Nancy hadn’t even been on the bed. 

The door opens, Nancy gasps from the chair, the sound making Steve lift his head, up and away from Jonathan’s mouth, and silence falls all at once. 

Jonathan had Steve on his back when Steve’s father walked in, probably ready to tell him off for having people over without permission again, even though they’re never, ever home anymore. 

For a long moment, they all just stay frozen, Steve’s father in the doorway, face slowly turning red. 

“Randal? What’s going-” Steve’s mother comes to a dead stop behind him, eyes wide. “Oh my- Steve!” 

Steve’s father and Jonathan move at the same time, Jonathan launching himself up and off the bed, putting as much distance in between them as possible as Steve’s father makes a wild grab for him. Nancy screams, the sound too loud in the small space. Steve’s muscles finally unlock in the face of her fear, and he turns to her, wanting to protect her from this, from all of it, and forgets to watch his own back. 

“Nancy, get-” Steve gasps as he’s hauled back and off the bed, hitting the floor awkwardly, his legs caught underneath him. 

“No!” 

“Stop it! 

“Randall-” 

Steve’s ears ring, the first real indication that his father had hit him. The screams were the second big indicator. Pain comes third. 

It’s a blur after that. 

He sort of remembers Jonathan taking an aborted swing at his father, but Nancy had stopped him, talking rapidly and gesturing. Steve stumbled to his feet while she had some kind of frantic conversation with his mom that he couldn’t hear over the rushing in his ear. His dad hit him again, he thinks, before he got off the floor. Lots of yelling. Jonathan was gone? Nancy rummaging through his dresser, his closet, which was weird. More yelling, his back hitting the wall. Pushing back, getting away briefly and getting grabbed again. 

Then they’re outside, with Jonathan in the car, on the road. To Jonathan’s house. Someone probably told him, because he knows where they’re going. 

Steve wraps himself tighter around Nancy in the back, numbly rubbing at the tear tracks on her cheeks. “It’s ok, Nance, it’s alright.” 

Jonathan meets his eyes in the rearview mirror, his face pinched and silent. His shirt is on inside out, the tag sticking out near the nape of his neck. Steve shifts, and realizes that he’s not wearing a shirt at all. He looks down. “Huh.” 

Nancy makes a soft sort of noise and rummages through his sports bag, which had apparently been stuffed full of random clothes from his room, and finds his old camp t-shirt. She holds it tight, her knuckles white even in the dark of the car. Steve puts his hand on hers, trying to make her feel better. 

The ride is both very long and very quick. At some point, Nancy gets the shirt on him. Steve stares out the window, trying to ignore how much his face hurts. 

“Steve,” Nancy says, very quietly. “Are you ok?” 

He glances back at her and finds her watching him like a bomb that might go off at any second, eyes wide and round. “Yeah.” 

“We’re here,” Jonathan mutters as he turns off the car. He stuffs the keys in his pocket as he goes, ducking his head to get out and jogging up to the door. Steve just stares after him, realizing for the first time where they are. Monster house. Christmas lights. Jonathan’s _mother_. 

He’s freezing cold, and completely unsure about what he’s going to do, but he’s not going inside. There’s no way. He can’t look Joyce in the face. But Nancy coaxes him out of the car, and into a sweater on top of the shirt, and it’s easier to just go. 

Jonathan is in the kitchen, leaning in close to his mother, talking too quietly to be heard, and Steve draws himself up, bracing for the next explosion. 

He’s ready. His face stings, and he’s ready to push Nancy out of the way if need be, and then they can get back in the car. Maybe they’ll do Nancy’s family next, because why not? They can deal with it. But it doesn’t come. 

Joyce makes a humming noise as she pokes at his face, leaving and then reappearing with a white box for Nancy. First aid kit. Steve sits still, letting her stick ice packs and bandages to him while Joyce putters around the space. Jonathan is gone again. Then he comes back, his expression inscrutable. 

“What time are you working tomorrow?” 

“Eight,” Joyce says, moving some papers around until the microwave goes off. It’s bizarrely normal. 

Steve glances up, confused, when Joyce hands him a frozen dinner and moves him to the table with a gentle hand at his back. Nancy and Jonathan follow, too little shadows behind her. It almost makes him smile. But his face hurts, and he wouldn’t even if he wanted to, which he doesn’t. 

Joyce sits with them. It almost hurts to look at her, all care and concern. He avoids her eyes and eats his still-cold-in-the-middle dinner, eyes darting between Joyce and her son. Will must be asleep, which is good. He shouldn't be around when Joyce finds out, ruining this little mockery of a family dinner table. Middle of the night, single mother, gays, or whatever they are together. Nancy would probably be fine, but she went to the other place. She could handle anything. 

“Steve?” 

He looks up, realizing for the first time that he’d looked down. “Yes ma’am?” 

She frowns at him. “Don’t ma’am me, please.”

“Ok.”

“Do you think we should call them or- we should probably give them some time, do you think?” she asks, looking at Jonathan now, who nods. Nancy mumbles a quiet agreement, and he notices that she’s basically holding him up on the left side with the way he was leaning on her with his shoulder. He decides to ease up, but can’t, doesn’t. He stares at Jonathan. 

“It was pretty bad,” he answers, quietly. “We should leave it.” 

Steve watches them, the whole exchange, confusion gradually turning to a deeper sort of hurt. Joyce knows. Not the new sort of knowing either. She already knew, hasn’t cared this whole time. Jonathan had told her, he must have. He trusted her and she hadn’t betrayed him. 

Steve sort of relaxes, going a bit boneless in the chair. Nancy makes a noise, and smoothes a hand along his shoulder. Puppet and strings. 

It’s a difference. The difference, maybe. Steve's mother had barely moved, watching it all unfold when Steve got dragged down the stairs with wide eyes and a wine glass already hanging from her fingers. She looked right through him. 

“Sweetheart?” 

Steve glances up again, and Joyce is just _looking_ at him, still, she won’t leave him alone, and he starts crying. That’s all it takes. Then Joyce is holding him, and it makes it worse, and then better. 

He feels pretty bad though, even for better. 

***

The thing that pisses him off, or one of the things, the thing he’s focusing on now, is that it was stupid. They hadn’t been doing anything particularly reckless, especially not by their standards. Last week, Steve had kissed Nancy on the cheek and told her to remind him to put ‘risk taker’ on his applications because he was standing guard outside the darkroom at school so Jonathan could develop pictures other people aren’t meant to see. Not pornographic per se, but not for other people for sure. 

Jonathan in the red closet working as fast as he can, they assume. Nancy staying a little ways down the hall, ready to leap into action, to go and be the first line of defense, to talk to anyone approaching. It was fun. 

Nancy and Steve dancing around each other, with Jonathan watching them on and off from the other side of the room, still busy with his pictures, the clean ones now. The good stuff was stashed away, to be enjoyed later. Steve watching him back while he plays with Nancy’s hair, her hands, tugging at the back of her sweater. She’s looking at him too, and he doesn’t notice, too focused, his hands moving with a confidence they don’t get to see too many other places. 

Nancy rolls up on the balls of her feet to press a kiss to the underside of Steve’s jaw, and he reflexively leans in, and then dips down, catching her mouth on the second try. She hums, curled into him and still residually buzzed from doing something even vaguely bad at school. In Jonathan’s special place. 

Steve sees Jonathan glance up and then back down out of the corner of his eye. 

It’s almost weird, to be this close without him right there, participating. Steve tries to emulate him while kissing Nancy, trying to feel what he feels when he does this. Jonathan is so intent, so focused on one thing at a time, with Nancy especially, like he can’t process the whole, not yet. He kisses with his eyes closed, feels with his hands, but odd places, not just her breasts, not just cupping her ass. He touches the space right under her ribs with his fingertips, getting distracted by her skin. He kisses her soft, but insistent. Coaxing, not pressing. 

It’s just an errant thought, an experiment, but Nancy pulls away, wide eyed. 

“What- were you being Jonathan just now?” 

Steve blinks. “I uh, yeah?” 

That gets Jonathan’s attention, head snapping up so quick that Steve swears he hears a noise come out of his neck. 

Nancy just stares at him, a flush creeping up her face. Steve flexes his fingers against the soft skin of her arms, hands stuck most of the way up the sleeves of her sweater, some of the old nervousness creeping back up. “Should I be offended?” 

“No,” she says, her voice lower than normal. 

Steve laughs. “Check this out. Nancy likes...what? Should I try to kiss like Jonathan sometime? Fuck like him?” 

Nancy sputters, her face red now. “I- I don’t know-” 

“Nancy,” Jonathan says, and Steve can tell his throat had gone dry. 

Steve sends him a shit eating grin, and Jonathan flushes all the way to his ears. 

They didn’t actually had sex in the darkroom that day, though Nancy had clearly wanted to and Steve was game for anything. Jonathan, as always, was the voice of caution, and Nancy’s natural reason soon caught up. 

Steve figures he’ll probably be more on board with that kind of thing from now on. Assuming they can even- 

Assuming a lot. 

Maybe Jonathan would give him some of the pictures. 

***

They agree he’ll stay the night, with Jonathan, and Nancy. 

“Your mom, she’s-” Steve trailed off, sitting on the edge of Jonathan’s bed. 

Jonathan actually cracks a smile for the first time in hours. His face had been like a mask, before. “I know.”

“I didn’t know that she’d be so…”

Jonathan shrugs. “My dad always said it about Will, I think she decided a long time ago to be fine with it for him.”

“Oh.” Steve bounces his leg, nervous and tired and in pain. Weirdly, he’s not all that angry, but it would probably come tomorrow. “But now it’s you.”

Jonathan rolls his eyes. “Yeah, surprise I guess.”

“It might still be Will too,” Nancy says, very quietly. 

“That’s true,” Jonathan answers, just as soft. 

Steve tunes out, not so much listening to the words and hearing the shape of the sounds. They move around him, getting ready, swapping outside clothes for Jonathan’s old t-shirts. Nancy insists on bringing the dishes on his side table to the kitchen. Jonathan checks something on his camera. Steve watches, heart picking up and then slowing down at odd times. How is he going to get his backpack back? They have school on Monday. 

Jonathan looks up, like maybe Steve made a noise, and then pads over to him, dropping down onto the bed. “Stop thinking so loud.” 

Steve gives him a dry look. “I will if you stop trying to be funny. I’m the funny one.” 

“Not right now.” 

“Jonathan,” Nancy admonishes from the doorway, quickly darting over to sit with them on the bed.

Steve’s arm shoots out without his permission to wrap around her shoulders, pulling her close, and they both smile, one on either side of him. “That’s creepy.” 

Jonathan sticks his arms out behind him to lean back on. “Too bad you’re stuck with us,” he says, too casually, not quite pulling it off. 

Steve looks at his carpet, ignoring Joyce walking by for the third time in twenty minutes. “How long have you been sitting on that one?” It earns him a sharp jab in the side. Stress produces a viciousness in Jonathan, which he then buries under this weird, childish stuff. Probably came from taking care of his brother, which Steve is not. 

He turns his face, casting one quick glance at the door, and kisses him, hard. Nancy hums, leaning in for the brief second they all let it happen before pulling away. Jonathan’s face is red, flushed to his ears. Steve winks at him. “Thanks.” 

“Of course,” Nancy says, pulling on his arm. He turns to her, and she rubs her thumb into the pad of his hand. “Also, don’t let me forget that your backpack is in Jonathan’s trunk.”

“No it’s not.” 

She blinks. “Um, yes?” 

He laughs, and doubles over as best he can given the two attached to him on either side, tears forming at the corners of his eyes while Jonathan stares at him like he’s insane. “You- you’re amazing.” 

Nancy giggles, self-conscious. “Well if I knew that was all it took-” 

“Please don’t wake my brother up.” 

“Sorry, sorry man.” 

“It’s ok,” Jonathan all but whispers, even though the damage must be done by now. It’s over, it’s done and it happened. They can’t do anything about it but deal. 

Steve throws himself backwards, flat on the bed. “Shit.” 

“I know.” 

“I mean-” 

“Yeah.” 

Steve sighs, letting his eyes drift shut. His face still hurts. More, even, than it had before. His heart’s never going to stop tripping over itself, but then it does, evening out. Nancy fits herself into the space between his arm and neck and chest. Jonathan sort of slots himself next to him, flank to flank, arms getting tangled every time one of them moves, which isn’t much after a few minutes. 

They curl up sideways on Jonathan’s bed, on top of the covers with the door open, and hold onto each other until morning.

**Author's Note:**

> paradiamond.tumblr.com


End file.
